Tuesday, October 16, 2007

The Truth About Chocolate Milk

At dinner tonight I learned that chocolate milk is made with blood-contaminated milk that can't be sold as regular milk because it's pink.

Um, ewwwww.....good thing I drank only regular milk growing up....

However, after I decided to post this disgusting fact about chocolate milk, a recent Google search and read on Snopes.com reveals that it's not true. Seems like the good ol' FDA is doing its job.

BUT, a further search brought me to the NOTMILK website, where there are tons of articles and links about cow's milk. Below is a quote from an article by Robert M. Kradjian, MD, Breast Surgery Chief Division of General Surgery, of Seton Medical Centre #302 in Daly City, CA.

Any lactating mammal excretes toxins through her milk. This includes antibiotics, pesticides, chemicals and hormones. Also, all cows' milk contains blood! The inspectors are simply asked to keep it under certain limits. You may be horrified to learn that the USDA allows milk to contain from one to one and a half million white blood cells per millilitre. (That’s only 1/30 of an ounce). If you don’t already know this, I’m sorry to tell you that another way to describe white cells where they don’t belong would be to call them pus cells. To get to the point, is milk pure or is it a chemical, biological, and bacterial cocktail? Finally, will the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) protect you? The United States General Accounting Office (GAO) tells us that the FDA and the individual States are failing to protect the public from drug residues in milk. Authorities test for only 4 of the 82 drugs in dairy cows.

Interesting....so even if it's regular milk it still has blood in it (though we don't see it). That's gross. Well, I suppose I suggest switching over to soy milk for now (you don't want to be drinking any pus!) while I try to navigate the FDA archives to get to the bottom of this.

I've been searching on the FDA and USDA website with regards to the blood in milk (not just chocolate milk). I have submitted a question to a USDA expert, and they will get back to me within 5 business days. You will be the first to know!

The funny part is, the idea of drinking another animals bodily fluids isn't gross by itself... So if a tiny amount of blood is enough to convince you to stop drinking something that comes out of a cow's udder... You're weird. On a field trip to Clover Stornetta in California as a kid, they specifically told us all this was a PETA myth, and if anybody was doing it, it would be the nationally packacked stuff. That stuff barely qualifies as milk anyways.

Blood is blood, If you eat meat all that yummy cooked blood that leaks is on top of the skin.A little blood never hurt anyone.Plus I smell this being another thing peta is pulling they're always crazy, Remember the old "Sea kitties" thing?

Its not surprising really. They hook the cows up to the machine to get the milk and sometime it will keep sucking and it gets blood. If you've ever been to a dairy farm you will see this. Is it bothersome, yes. But as everyone has stated anyone who eats meat, eats blood. Either way all the hormones given to the cows are being consumed by us....now that is not such a good thing.

a) If it were true, why would blood in chocolate milk be a problem anyways? Most of us have no problem scarfing down hotdogs, smokies or steak, so why is milk a problem?Its illogical. You can't see it, you can't taste it, and its present in all other meat products and in much greater quantities.

b) Human breast milk also contains lymphocytes and antibodies (white blood cells), so what if animals do to? The quoted article displays a pretty poor knowledge of biology for someone who is a doctor... By the way, I wonder why said doctor wouldn't publish his article in a peer-reviewed journal?

He would get laughed at.

For one thing, he states that the Bovine Leukemia Virus could infect humans. Wrong. They rarely even infect other animals outside of cattle and buffalo, and even then they require an artificial infection.

c) The FDA strictly bans any blood-contaminated milk. "Below a certain level" could just be a manipulation of "below detectable levels."I'm guessing a site called "NOTMILK" is going to have a tiny bit of bias in how it presents its information... Surprise!

I'm going to gulp down a delicious glass of milk... mmmmm.

Its totally valid to say that milk has antibiotics and potentially other toxins in it, and be concerned about that. But to make retarded claims about "pus" being in our milk is just silly. By this definition of "pus" human breast milk also is tainted. Idiots.

There are many things that many people don't know that either goes into milk , milk byproducts , or even beef, pork , chicken, and fish. There are tones of medications that are used on cattle that are harmful to humans yet no one seems to care they still eat the beef. Its the same with the blood you consumer more blood buy just eatting a steak that you would ever get from drinking one glass of milk. And the other comments on here are totally true. WE too have the antibodies , and whiteblood cells with in our breast milk. So why is it such a big deal ? for one it think that if you believe the crap that is said here you are either stupid , or just so guiable that you can't tell the difference. Growing up and raising cattle my entire life, there are many things the public does not know about their food. They are naive and think that it comes from the store with just strictly what it says on the the package. Yes everything is regulated , and is enforced for the gerneral health saftey for the public. but yes there is blood in milk and there are many other things in milk too , that doesn;t mean that you should stop drinking milk becuase you know this information , you drank it before and it never seemed to bother you so why would it bother you now?

I'm an ovo-lacto vegetarian (meaning I still eat eggs and milk products) and this doesn't bother me half as much as the horrifying cruelty that animals suffer on corporate dairy and other types of farms. That's why I buy my milk from a local, family-based farm, or I buy organic where they promise to take good care of the animals.

Calling people idiots for taking an interest in how our food is processed behind closed doors is obnoxious and rude. People dont know what they are consuming anymore and they will hand over their money to greedy corporations who would do anything to make a profit. The FDA allows Fluoride in Quebec water, yet Columbia will ban it, how well does the FDA actually work? What does the FDA work for? Profit. Everything today is based on "How can I make money off of this..." Blood in milk is probably the least cynical thing going on in this world.Melany, Montreal

milk has many protein your body needs, without it my muscles atropy as i love to lift weights thats like losing a testicle to me. im lactose intollerent so i have to go out of my way to be able to digest the wonderful proteins found in milk at first i was kinda grossed out about the blood comment but now that i think of it, it sounds preety beneficial if you cant taste it and wouldnt have known about it why complain about it? drink your milk or drink your piss

Drinking milk in general is gross. Humans are them only mammals to continue to drink milk after we are nursed. Ohh and by the way, soy milk is filled with estrogen so dont go thinking that you can exchange blood in cows milk for soy milk because the soy is just as bad.

This is the MOST ridiculous article I've ever read. Honestly, putting a mars bar and chocolate milk in the same category is IGNORANT. mars bars don't contain 9 vitamins and minerals. And the reference to "Not Milk.com" is the equivalent of a good gossip magazine or internet rumor. Get your facts straight. Base it on the slow and methodological principles of science and research. NOT on a passing fade or internet craze. As far as the blood, oh well. You DO eat beef don't you?

I am going to shed a little bit of light on this topic. I am a food science major and I did an internship at a milk processing facility. There is an ounce of truth to the "blood in the milk" story, but you will rarely be able to see the full picture. Luckily, I'll be able to tell you all about it.

All of the milk from a farm is co-mingled and put into a tanker truck. The farm itself tests for BACTERIAL COUNT. They do not test for blood or pus. After the milk tanker truck arrives at the processing facility, it is put through a series of tests. The most important test here is for color. A sample of the milk is put into a machine called a UV spectrometer to make sure it is within the cosmetic quality standards. Milk that passes the other tests but has a slight tint will be used for chocolate milk. The "whitest" milk will be used for regular milk.

So where does the color tint come from? It can be from blood or pus, but some cows also produce off-color milk that is perfectly fine. The milk still meets the minimum quality standards, so it is safe to drink. On average, white milk would be better quality, but that does not mean that the tinted milk that is used for chocolate milk is unsafe.

What's with the name?

"Do you want me to make you a lunchbox?" That's what my mom said after dinner every night. It sounds so strange. Shouldn't she say, "Do you want me to pack you a lunch?" But, English is not my mom's first language. And, that didn't stop me from enjoying leftovers the next day in my neatly packed Tupperware container.

My mom's weird sentence still tickles me to this day and her gesture of making me a lunchbox (even into my early 20's!) also made me feel very taken care of.

I hope that this blog will give you information about little treasures (be it restaurants or recipes) I have found.